Normalcy
by Spinedle
Summary: A quick look at Jonathan Crane's college days. Everyone starts out pretending to be normal, and some people tear off the mask. M for sexual situations and language. Scarecrowfic.


The stairs creak as he creeps up them, sometimes, and he imagines someone opening their apartment door and staring at him, their eyes accusing and angry. It would probably be a woman, a young woman with blond hair and thick makeup. She would know what's in the bag. She would sneer at him, close the door and hide him from her disgusted gaze.

_(they always know)_

He fumbles with the keys to his door, his attempts to stay silent making it worse. He's afraid he'll drop the paper bag and the contents will spill out all over the floor, and the pages will fly under the doorsteps of the neighbors and they would know.(but they already do, but it would be there and they would **KNOW**)

He slips into his apartment and locks the door before flicking the light switch up, and the lamp on the corner desk casts a dirty yellow light on the room. The paneled, brown walls, water stained, peeling flowery wall paper and brown wooden floors make it seem more eerie and almost like a horror novel, very vintage and homey. Frankenstein's room as he cuts the flesh from his thigh.

What, if that -woman- came into this room-perhaps to ask him why the dryer wasn't working or just to insult him (he sensed that's what she knocked on his door for at times, to gawk at his sharp body and his awkward movement, his large nose and wide, watery eyes) and she saw his room? Would she be afraid, of the darkness?

A slight thrill ran through him, and the paper bag in his hands felt heavier as his fingers tingled.

He stepped over the books piled on the floor with his long, bony legs in his ankle length, fraying pants and brown penny loafers. (He needs new shoes, he notes.)

He shakes his head and focuses on the previous thought, pushing aside rationality and the earthly realm-or as much as he could.

Softly setting the paper bag in the center of his perfectly clean desk, his shadow stains the wall. It is dark and still as he stares at it, in the center.

A sudden feeling of unease crawls into his stomach, but he ignores it.

Jonathan picks up the paper bag by the sides, exactly in the middle.

The brown paper contrasts sharply with his pale hands, and the shadows make the brown paper look dirty. He smooths it out absently, where his fingers press into the paper he feels that tingle again, and he grits his teeth.

(Black feathers on a chapel floor, closed doors and screaming  
Please please please gramma let me out please  
Cold and wet, broken nails and tired, hands feel dry like the stone floor was absorbing him  
But the_ birds!_)

He shakes his head violently and roughly dumps the contents of the paper bag on the desk.

Two magazines hit the hard wood in slow motion; his eyes see every page succumb to gravity before they land in a haphazard pile.

He stares at the stiff paper covers. The woman on the front is blond and smiling, wearing stockings and thin panties. Her hair covers her breasts, and she's leaning over with her hands on her thighs, smiling wantonly.

He licks his fingers and opens it.

First page-advertisements and a table of contents.

Second page-naked whores.

His throat feels so narrow, and he feels slightly…sick. He pushes the magazines away and gets up quickly, pushing himself away from his desk and flopping down on his bed.  
Burying his face in his blanket, he shook and made a small gasping noise in his throat. His skin felt warm and seeping.

_(hellfire)_

He stands and rips his clothes off, down to his threadbare boxers and white socks and collapses on his bed again, still sweating and claustrophobic. He gets up and snatches the-

_(Filth)_

Magazines off the desk and strides towards the window, cursing as he bends his nail on the lock and yanks it open, shoves his arm out the window and slams the pages into the air. They drop down, the garbage beneath deadening their suicide leap.

He stares at the women on the alley floor, their nude forms blanketed and blurry in the night.

He feels foolish and has the urge to go retrieve them, they were five dollars apiece and he hadn't enough money to be wasting now…

But the woman.

Imagining her going to put out her garbage in the morning, wearing nothing but a bathrobe and sheer panties like the women in the magazine, seeing the hollow eyed girls in their filthy positions and their fake smiles on the cold morning ground-

Makes him want to vomit. Vomit onto his clean white blanket. Ruin it.

_(What a disgusting man)_

_(disgusting)_

He closes the window gently and replaces the latch into its standard position, crosses the room and slumps onto his bed again.

If he was behind her, taking his garbage out, or she pounds the stairs in her robe and shakes the magazines in his face, asks why he had these and asks why he's such a disgusting and perverted man, threatening to tell the landlord...

_He could show her how disgusting he could be, couldn't he?_ A small voice asks. Just how absolutely _blasphemous _he could be, he could make her thick eyeliner bleed down her face with her tears and he imagines her powder would float into the air like dust if she was

(Nononononono)

And she would scream and it would be _release_.

The voice continues and his hand is slipping into his boxers.

* * *

A/N:

(reposted on new account with edits.)

Fucking parasites.


End file.
